"Hot and Spicy" from Taiwan

The highlight of today's Taiwanfest at Toronto's Harbourfront is the culinary demonstration by "Hot and Spicy Chef" Cheng-Chung Chen from Taiwan.  Not normally a hot and spicy fan, I would never have walked into a Sichuan restaurant on my own and Mr. Chen is famous for his Sichuan specialty.  It's a good thing I stayed and tasted the dishes he made - I was pleasantly surprised.

Even the raw prawns were nicely arranged - they had been marinated with egg white, salt and corn starch.  The Chef then proceeded to butterfly them with their shell on.  He then laid them tails up on a bed of glass noodles that had been soaked in water.  

The chef explained the sauces.  He used a sauce that is made up of marinated chopped peppers.  There was a mix of hot, mild and sweet peppers and this looked like it's the key to the flavour of the dish.  Of course, there is the garlic, which he first smashed and then chopped into a million fine bits in no time at all.  (I just realized that I need to get myself another sharp and thin chopper like his!  I was trying to do the same thing the night before using my forty-year old chopper.  It was great for chopping chicken bones but for fine cutting and mincing, it just didn't make the cut.   A knife manufacturer should have been at this show!)

Chopping garlic

He put everything into the sauce - juice of one lemon, marinated chopped peppers, chopped garlic, salt, mushroom essence (another new find*), sugar, vinegar and honey.  He drizzled the sauce over the prawns and the glass noodles, steam the whole thing for 10 minutes and it was done.  The final touch - sprinkle some chopped parsley and green onion on top,  heat up some oil and pour over the top.

We were offered a plate of the prawns over glass noodles and the following dish - Szechuan Hot & Spicy Mussels - all for $2 - a bargain compared to the street food being served outside in the square.

Done!

* Learned something new again when the woman next to me asked me what was that mushroom essence the chef was using.  Never heard of it but a couple of the Taiwanese workers behind us knew what it was - dried mushrooms powder.  The woman beside me extrapolated that she could use dried shitake mushrooms and ground them up.  She had done the same with porcini mushrooms and used them as flavouring - she said it went right into the food and the flavour was very intense.   She then suggested that I buy a large bag of porcini mushrooms to bring home next time I'm in Italy.  What a great idea!

Seattle Food Tour

Mr and Ms Gotts went on a  Seattle Walking Food Tour recently. This tour was top rated by tripadvisor, and it was fun to visit the kitchens, meet with the chefs, and had special food prepared for us.

We started out at the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co, where we were treated to 2 mini cupcakes baked just for the tour. [OK, so I took a couple bites before I remembered to take the picture]. The right one has a special cream topping, sprinkled with bacon; the left one is Belgian chocolate. I was never too fond of cupcakes, but these were absolutely delicious!

Next we walked to a Tom Douglas restaurant, where we were led to a long table in the kitchen for our tasting. There were 11 people total, plus the guide, Brad.

I wasn't fast enough to take the photo before people dug into the pizzas. The top one was margarita with buffalo mozzarella; the bottom one was chanterelle mushroom and truffle cheese. The mushroom pizza was rated by Tyler Florence on the Food Network show as "the best thing he ever ate". It was excellent.

 Inside the kitchen.

The special wood burning pizza oven (behind the guy with the apron), is set at more than 100 degrees hotter than normal pizza ovens. They keep the oven going all night, as it will cool down too much if they turn it off, and it won't be hot enough when the next day's lunch comes around.

Next we went into RN74, a railroad themed restaurant. The chef (or manager, since he wasn't wearing a chef outfit) came out and talked about the restaurant.

We were served  tomato soup with truffle oil, and maitake tempura with citrus mousseline.

As I requested non-alcoholic service, I was served a pomegranate drink with mint.

The next stop is Pike Place Market's il Bistro, which normally is closed for lunch, but set up just for our group. This is one of the first (oldest) "fancy" restaurant in Seattle, as defined by having white tablecloths. We had risotto with clams and mussels. I was served Pellegrino sparkling water.

 And the chef came out and talked about the restaurant and  its history.

Next we went to the Pike Brewing Company, right next to the grossest germiest place on earth, Seattle Gum wall. The chief brewer educated us on brewing beer, and after listening to her speech, I was very interested in trying it out myself - even though I normally hate beer.

Unfortunately I had already indicated I was non-alcoholic, so I got an apple-raspberry drink, followed by an apple juice with 2 different cheese pairings. The other people had the "Pike Kilt Lifter", which smelled floral and almost tasted acceptable based on the small sip that I took. The second one was the Pike IPA which again smelled nice but tasted "hops-sy". Even for a beer-hater like me, I could tell that these were artisan beer and much superior than the grocery store varieties.

The next stop was the truffle store at Pike Place Market, where we got to sniff 2 different kinds of truffles (smell, but don't touch). We were served a small cup of potato soup, before and after infusion of truffle oil with the eye dropper.

There were also samples laid out for tastings.

I was so impressed that I bought some truffle salt. It was discounted by 15% because of the tour, so it only set me back about $20 for 2 oz.

Brad the tour guide making sure nobody got lost at Pike Place Market.

Next was Von's GustoBistro, where we were served sour dough flour linguine with an alcoholic based tomato sauce. 

We ended by at a gelato place Gelatiamo, where we had an almond and raspberry gelato, followed by coffee. It will be interesting to compare it with the real thing that we will soon be getting at Florence, Italy...

All in all, a most pleasant experience. The 2 best choices voted by the group were the mushroom  pizza and the risotto. We also received a 15% discount card at all the partner restaurants and shops, too bad it expires in a week or so. Another disappointment was we did not end up back at the Yellow Leaf cupcake, as I would have liked to purchase additional bacon cupcakes!

Le Pichet, a Perfect Neighborhood Bistro

Whenever Arufa & M are in town, they eat at Le Pichet, a small old-fashioned bistro complete with menu written in cursive on black chalk boards, wood bar and tables, sidewalk service, and a floor of small while tiles dotted with black ones.  

Sidewalk tables outside Le Pichet

Menu boards

Le Pichet is known for its charcuterie.  Pork blood sausage made with cream and egg is smooth and flavorful; duck liver and pork pate earthy and meaty; chicken liver pate as smooth as foie gras.  There are also various saucissons, jambon, beef tongue, and in all a total of 12 selections.

Charcuterie - (clockwise from top) duck liver pork patre, chicken liver pate, beef tongue, salami, pork blood sausage.

For entrée, there may be escargots, and better yet a decadent plate of roasted beef marrow bones sprinkled with coarse salt served with fava beans in a demi-glace.  The beans offered a nice balance to the richness of the marrow.  The sauce added complexity to the flavor.  On one evening, the plat du jour was an incredibly tender octopus, slow-simmered in a rich ragout of charred tomatoes, fennel and Pastis, that tasted of ocean. 

Escargots

Roasted marrow bones, fava beans

Slow-simmered octopus

Arufa & M like to order quiche for their weekend brunch.  The Le Pichet quiche is light and fluffy, simply the best.  Another popular brunch dish, eggs broiled with ham and gruyere, may be better if a dry cured ham (such as jambon de Bayonne or d’Auvergne) is used in place of the jambon de Paris, and if the yolks are runnier.

Quiche

Oeufs, jambom et fromage

Le Pichet has an excellent clafoutis, a classic baked dessert of cherries with a thick flan-like batter, dusted with sugar, and served lukewarm.  The Le Pichet version is traditional except that the Bing cherries have been pitted for the diner’s convenience, at the risk of offending the purists who swear that the pits release a particularly wonderful flavor during baking.  Another lovely dessert is the chocolat chaud -- a large cup of hot chocolate served with a quenelle of thick cream on the side.  One can eat spoons of chocolate and cream in whatever order and proportion one likes.  It is heavenly for lovers of bittersweet chocolate.

Cherry clafoutis

Chocolat chaud

Le Pichet is a real gem.  The all-French food and wines are not only good but also reasonably priced (by the way, all wines are available by the bottle, pichet, demi-pichet or glass).  For anyone who looks for a classic Parisian neighborhood bistro, this unpretentious comfortable place is the destination.  One can hardly find a better alternative outside France.

Kings of Pastry

In “Three Stars”, we saw how stressful it was to stay on top as a Michelin Three Star chef.  But wait till you see “Kings of Pastry”.  This is about a group of pastry chefs competing for the honour of being one of the “Meilleurs Ouvriers de France”.  This is a contest that is held once every four years in France for various artisanal professions, including everything from pastry making to steel engraving through a range of highly skilled crafts.  The process is brutal.  These craftsmen spent years preparing for the three day test.  But when they get the award, it’s for life, and because of its gruelling requirements, much honoured and respected.

In “Kings of Pastry”, we followed several pastry chefs in their preparation for the test.  They have to prepare a fancy sugar sculpture centrepiece and all kinds of pastries and chocolates for a wedding party.  They drew on all their creative and technical resources to design the sculpture.  The rest is probably easy for these skilled craftsmen.  But the most draining was the actual preparation of the sugar sculpture at the test site – the sculpture had to be made in the kitchen and then carried by hand to the tents that were erected for this purpose.  They actually had staff directing traffic to ensure there is no collision during this transportation.  A slight change in humidity could be disastrous for the sculpture – and it happened to one chef whose sculpture collapsed as he placed it on the table.  It was devastating – but after calming down, he went back and finished the competition, gathering up his creative juices, he salvaged what was left of the broken sculpture and quickly turned it into another creation, almost like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.  I won’t spoil the film by telling you the results of the contest.  But it was finger-biting exciting.

Chef repairing the damage after the collapse of his sculpture 

One can’t help but admire these dedicated artisans who put their all into this test of their endurance over the course of just a few days.  They have to have their technique down pat in order to survive all the ups and downs during these stressful hours.  Their reward, if they win, (there is more than one winner - they just have to get a certain number of points) is a prestigious collar ribbon presented by the French President at the Sorbonne. 

"Three Stars"

I binged on food documentaries last week.   Watching one led me on to another, and another.  Food docs can be addictive.  The three I watched were all very good.  Although I wasn’t inspired by them, I was certainly fascinated – and excited by the passion that had inspired these chefs. 

The first one: “Three Stars” directed by Lutz Hachmeister introduced us to nine Michelin starred chefs, their personalities, how they run their kitchens, the philosophy behind their cooking and more importantly, how the Michelin star designation affected their lives.  The “Three Stars”, referring to the rating by Michelin, could make or break a restaurant, and its chef.  In the case of Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide when he thought he might lose his 3 star status, it indeed broke the man.

These chefs, all fascinating personalities, could not have been more different.  Some were boisterous, some reserved, but all dedicated and focused on perfection.  One chef, Oliver Roellinger of Brittany, was defiant.  He gave up his Michelin 3 stars and closed the Maison de Bricourt.  He chose to share his cooking in a less formal setting in Le Coquillage, opening at the same time a spice importing company, a cooking school, a guest villa and a pastry shop.  This is one restaurant I would like to visit.

You can see the names of the other chefs on the cast list of the documentary.  Jean Georges Vongerichten, who owns and operates a “constellation” of 3 and 4 star restaurants, is obviously a savvy businessman in addition to being a famous chef.  He was the consummate actor in his own show.  Contrast him with Nadia Santini, the first female chef in Italy to earn the three stars.  She was relaxed and gentle, completely at home in her small town restaurant, Dal Pescatore in Canneto sull’Oglio in Lombardy – another one that I would like to visit.  I was also sad that Sergio Hermann announced that he will close his restaurant Oud Sluis in the Netherlands in December, 2013 as he seemed so charismatic.  But then it does make me wonder at the stress these guys must be going through – living on the edge, almost with a sentence over their heads – perform, or lose your 3 star status.  No wonder they opt to close, and then start again from scratch - too many of these occurrences to be coincidence. 

The million dollar question:  How long can one sustain perfection?

I admire these chefs but I do feel sorry for them, except for the ones for whom the “three stars” is not a sentence, but just another adornment external to their calling.  As for the Michelin people?  They certainly know how to keep their edge - they have developed a separate rating system for restaurants in Asia.  Now I call that savvy!

I will talk about the other two docs in another post.

Growing my own salad

I love the idea of harvesting lettuce from my backyard for my salad - apart from the fact that I know where it came from, it is also very fresh and tasty - very satisfying overall.  I had started growing my own salad this year, thanks to my serious gardener friend who  offered me nine lettuce plants that she had pulled from her vegetable garden.  I planted them in organic soil in an old planter liner, and in two weeks, I was able to harvest enough for a salad.  This is despite a random attack by the resident raccoon.  Somehow it just dug up the plants, chewed up a few leaves and never came back - thank goodness!

A week after planting

Three weeks after planting - weekly harvests, and almost no work at all.  
I must have watered them three times this month, thanks to the rain.  I applied an organic fertilizer that came in spikes.

This is a week's harvest - enough for a salad and at least four sandwich wraps

 add some cherry tomatoes from my deck planter

 
and I have myself a salad!

Thanks, D!

Is It Really Cake?

A friend of mine brought this remarkable "cake" to my attention.  It was too good an opportunity to pass up so I asked her to do a guest post for us.  To my surprise, she agreed - another example of "never ask, never get".  Enjoy ~

Few of his clients know that Bob Hansen, a multi-talented construction contractor who does work for me from time to time has another life as a painter cum cake master.  His often whimsical, always Food-Network-worthy cakes are the stuffs of legend and perennial winners at the local July 4th county fair.  The only times Bob didn't win was when he didn't compete in order to (in his own words)  "give others a chance". Lucky for us fans, this year Bob somehow managed to vanquish his altruistic feelings and reentered the fray.  The result? What else but another cake that took the cake:

Love the details!  crumpled paper on the floor,  note on pad, printer output on the floor...

Lest anybody thinks this tour de force is a mere concoction of colorful plastic gizmos and thingies, I should point out that all but the legs and antennae of the butterfly are edible. The chair pad and back are real ginger bread; the cables are black licorice; the pencil and apple are gum paste; the floor is royal ice painted with food coloring to look like wood planks.  

The desk is a multi-functional engineering marvel featuring a built-in printer, an USB port with flash drive and a few SD memory slots. One side is the printer's in-feed and the other side is the out-feed with a catch rack made from sugar dough.  Great space saving design with patent pending by the way. The legal pad, which most would agree to be the pièce de resistance, is gum paste overlaid with icing upon which an edible food printer is used to print the lines with food colored ink. Ditto for the computer display and printouts.  

Left side view - more details: cellphone charging, printer paper feed...

What is that iridescent butterfly doing on the back of the chair, you ask? It turned out it's Bob's trademark signature which is guaranteed to give copycats nightmares. Originally Bob intended to create a figurine to sit at the desk but ran out of time.  No problem, the absence was ingeniously covered up by the inscription "I'll be right back" on the legal pad. Pretty slick, eh?

Crumpled notepaper turned into crumbs!

Incredible?  Apparently others agreed.  On the first day of the fair, some faithless soul came along and, instead of stuffing a chunk of cake into his/her mouth (which would have been reasonable), pulverized  the computer printout and legal pad page that were on the cake floor just to be satisfied that they weren't real paper.  Not to be outdone, the next day another (or maybe the same) villain ripped off the loose page from the legal pad.   After that, since the fair still had two more days to go, I no longer had the heart to follow the fate of Bob's masterpiece.  Now who says the Americans are a nation of lemmings that blindly run over cliffs?

- With thanks to sanssoucci

Bob Hansen actually makes custom cakes -  http://isitreallycake.com/

More on Amochinmi’s Onomichi Ramen (阿藻珍味の尾道ラ一メン)

We bought more Onomichi ramen (尾道ラ一メン) from Amochinmi (阿藻珍味) in spring.  They came with different soup stock.  One was a light version of the regular shouyu soup – ‘Assari!’ – prepared with usukuchi shouyu (light soy sauce 薄味醤油) and half the amount of pork fat.  Another was a rich version – ‘Noukou kotteri!’ – made with kogashi shouyu (caramelized soy sauce焦がし醤油).  The third was ‘Tonkotsu’ (とんこつ), a white stock of pork bone and in this case enriched with small fish from Seto Inland Sea and oysters from Hiroshima prefecture.  All were very good.

Assari! ramen

Noukou kotteri! ramen

Tonkotsu ramen

We ate them with slices of home-made chashu, and sometimes with boiled gyuutan (beef tongue).  

ramen with beef tongue

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Amochinmi has introduced a number of cold ramen for the hot Japan summer.  The offerings include chilled lemon (冷やし檸檬ラーメン) and tomato ramen (冷やしトマトラーメン), cold ramen with sesame sauce (ごまだれ) and sweet vinegar sauce (甘酢だれ), and the spicy hot Hiroshima tsukeramen (広島流つけ麺).  Tsukeramen, originated from Hiroshima, is cold ramen eaten with a dipping sauce that has been spiced up with red hot chili pepper (唐辛子), nin’niku (garlic) and goma (sesame).  We are looking forward to trying all of them as soon as they are delivered.

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Besides Amochinmi, we tried a shio koji (塩麴) ramen made by Menno Shimizuya of Hida (飛騨), Gifu Prefecture (岐阜県).  

shio koji ramen

Shio koji, the fermented product of rice inoculated with a mould culture called aspergillus oryzae (the same starter for sake, soy sauce and miso), salt and water.  It has been the latest trendy food ingredient in Japan for its health benefits.  Firstly, it is a probiotic.  Secondly, it contains much less sodium than salt but just as much umami.  It is being used in place of salt for seasoning and pickling.  We have enjoyed karaage (deep fried chicken meat) and tsukemono (pickled vegetables eaten with rice) marinated with shio koji, so we were eager to try this shio koji ramen.  We were surprised that the soup gave us a thirst for the rest of the day.  I could not understand that since one benefit of shio koji was to reduce the sodium intake.  Out of curiosity, I read the nutritional information on the back of the soup packet and was shocked that it contained 2,515 mg of sodium, 10% over the recommended daily limit of 2,300 mg.  Incredible!!! 

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My not-so-precise recipe for making Japanese Chashu (チャ一シュ一):

Poaching liquid:  Put a cup of koikuchi shouyu (濃口醤油 dark soy sauce), mirin (みりん sweet cooking sake) and junmai sake (純米清酒 sake brewed without added alcohol) into a pot.  Heat up the liquid to a gentle boil.  Add sugar to your taste.  

Pork for Chashu:  The pork should have some fat.  Many people use kata rosu (肩口一ス shoulder roast) or bara (バラ pork belly).  I use both, and sometimes also sotomomo (そともも pork butt). 

Cooking the Chashu:  Make sure there is enough poaching liquid to cover the pork; add water if necessary.  Bring the liquid to a boil.  Add the pork.  Let the liquid returns to boiling.  Cover the pot and turn off the heat.  After 15 minutes, bring the liquid to a boil a second time.  Again, turn off the heat and leave the pork in the covered pot.  Repeat the process a couple of more times for a large piece of pork.    Slice the chashu thinly for ramen.  This quick recipe is very different from the usual ones that simmer the chashu for a long time until it is tender.    

Home made chashu

Save the poaching liquid:  The liquid keeps well if you refrigerate it after it cools down.  You can reuse it for making more chashu or braising other meat.  The liquid acquires more flavors from the meat with each use.  You can also reduce the liquid to make a thick sweet sauce similar to tare for yakitori and teriyaki.